Summer - June 1947

Disclaimer: This extract may include sensitive topics and/or language that may make some feel uncomfortable. If you are affected by this exact, please do not continue reading this piece and ensure that you take care of yourself.

I hope you enjoy this exact and please comment below with your own experiences and feedback (if you feel able). Thank you for your support!

The church’s grey walls and glass window eyes watched its dead congregation from the top of its slight hill, keeping eye even in death. People dressed in black were walking in packs with shiny wet cheeks, holding on to one another and heading to the nearest pub, no doubt. Father Dolan, in his black vestment once again, followed the mourners like he was herding cattle, keeping his distance and watching them so they didn’t step out of place.                                                                                                                                           

He was one of the youngest priests that had blessed our village of Kilconnell, returning from Trinity college with the welcoming of lit bonfires set alight in all our pastures. He brought back home with him the promise of salvation and redemption for this part of the country. The promise that we would all be safe under the lord. Father Dolan was here for only six months before the first snowflakes from the Big Snow fell.                 

Father Dolan looked over to me, waved, and with a toothy yellowed grin, walked over, almost as if he spotted the stubborn cow that left the herd. Even though he was only twenty-five, he had begun to bold on the crown of his scalp, looking like he was stylising a monk’s hairdo. He would’ve been a handsome man if the church hadn’t aged him.                                                                             

‘Beautiful day, isn’t it, Siobhan?’ He licked his crusted lips and rubbed his sweaty hands down his vestment, no doubt hot as his black mourning wear sucked in the sun.                                                                                     

‘Yes, Father.’                                                                      

A silence dripped between us for a minute or two. I picked at the worn corners of the book, making the cardboard divide into separate sheets. He looked towards the sky, took a relaxed deep sighing breath, and looked back to me.       

‘That dress is lovely on ye now, Siobhan. It suits ya eyes, the yellow tones in it.’     

‘Thank you, Father.’                                                                                                                    

‘Is it from Martha O’Connor’s new shop in the town? I heard she was getting a grand amount of business, so I did.’                                                                                             

‘No, Father. I’ve had it for a long while now.’ I picked at the seams of the dress that lay just above my ankles. Father Dolan walked to Daddy’s cross, fiddling with the Rosary beads that hung around Daddy’s name.        

Another beat of silence.                                                                                                        

‘I see you planted lilies on your father’s grave, they’re blooming nicely, now, under this mild weather.’

‘Yes, Father.’                                                                                                                            

‘Sure, the Virgin herself would be proud. A shame they stain though. A symbol of purity, whilst being dirty at the same time.’ He looked down at me with intense eyes, gaze burrowing the inside of my temple. His eyes then slowly gazed down to the skin that covered my heart. ‘At least their stain wouldn’t look as noticeable on that dress.’ My daddy’s hand that warmed the base of neck dissolved, leaving a chill that zapped its way down my spine.                                                                    

I laughed into my chest. Unable to look into his eyes any longer, I stared at the book that rested on my lap, as if the cover that I had seen a million times revealed something new. I could hear that he was still fiddling with the Rosary Beads, the peas clanking together, making a sharp twinkling noise.                                                           

The distant sound of petrol cars started, revved, wheels spinning on lifted gravel, and left the kerbs that outlined the gravesite. All the mourners had left, leaving only Father Dolan and me with the dead. I looked over to the left where Father Dolan had walked from, spotting the humped dirt ground that covered the recent deceased. The family could afford the limestone, embellished with the hand workmanship of a stonemasons lettering.                                                     

‘Poor ol’ Ciara Murphy, only a youngen, about your age. Did you know her?’ Father Dolan asked.

‘Yes Father, I did. I saw her death notice in the papers this morning,’ I replied. I knew her from National School, she was in the year below me. She suddenly left when she was fifteen without a memory of her ever attending there. A rumour clung to her like a leach that her legs were wide and that she left the village with a foetus in the womb.          

‘Ara, it is a shame, now. Her heart went bust. A good girl led astray, mind. And that poor Lil bastard child, she was wailing like a gooden this morning in the church in Ciara’s aunts’ arms. She adopted her, the aunt. They’re now living in Aughrim, the aunt named her Shannon.’ His eyes, like a click of a switch, turned from sympathetic, downturned eyes, into a creased, anger-wrinkled brow.  ‘I said the babe would bring shame to the family, but they didn’t listen. Decided to keep it hush and say that Ciara’s aunt adopted the child from some old money family up north.’ Father Dolan’s exterior of the loving priest was soon whipped once he thought of the child.